


in the race (but i've already won)

by ev0lution



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, GET IT, High School AU, Non-Graphic Violence, THANK YOU ANNAFAN I'M YOUR #1 FAN NOW, There is fighting, and all the high school cliches, and tutoring, cassian needs a tutor in physics! and jyn is great at physics!, everyone is smol and emotionally inept, jyn needs a tutor in english! and cassian is great at english!, mostly jyn just punches people, musings on track shorts, sorry for butchering British slang I DID MY BEST, this is my love letter to early 2000s romcoms, update: now britpicked!, what a coincidence!!!, writing for this fandom again is like coming home
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-17
Updated: 2020-05-17
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:13:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24237844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ev0lution/pseuds/ev0lution
Summary: Jyn Erso, delinquent, Year 11, has been sentenced to her worst punishment yet: tutoring Cassian Andor. Only Jyn would make spending an hour every week with her crush a crisis.
Relationships: Bodhi Rook/Luke Skywalker, Cassian Andor/Jyn Erso, Chirrut Îmwe/Baze Malbus, Leia Organa/Han Solo
Comments: 23
Kudos: 112





	in the race (but i've already won)

**Author's Note:**

> Britpicked by the lovely and unstoppable and extremely patient AnnaFan.

“Jyn Erso, please report to the head teacher’s office.”

It wasn’t a particularly unique call; as quotidian as morning announcements, or the requests for the janitors to come with a bucket and rags during that month when some Year 10 had gone on a penis-graffiti crime spree. Jyn heard the call from her locker, where she was digging around for her Physics textbook.

She considered ignoring it. What were they calling her for, anyways? She ran through the list. She’d written on the girl’s bathroom stall that Krennic was an asshole in sharpie the other day. She was wearing jeans instead of dress pants, but they were black, so they kind of looked like uniform pants – passably enough that Amidala, the head teacher, hadn’t blinked an eye when she passed that morning. But that probably had more to do with Amidala’s own flagrant disregard of the rules, with her devil-may-care red lipstick. She’d slowly been filling Tarkin’s desk phone with quarters over the past month, intending to take them all out at once so he smacked himself in the face with the phone the next time it rang – but she was fairly certain he wasn’t on to her.

So that only left the humanitarian award. They were obviously giving it to her, for her services to the school. That had to be it. 

Snorting to herself, she slammed her locker door and walked down the hall, thumbs hooked into her backpack.

-:-

Yesterday, when she’d caught Trooper beating on some poor year 7, she’d punched him clean across the face. As he spat blood from his mouth, he’d asked, “ _ What’s your  _ fucking  _ problem, Erso _ ?”

These were her  _ fucking  _ problems:

  1. She definitely had detention in her future, for punching that jerk Trooper in the face. 
  2. Leia was going to be _pissed off_ if she was late to hockey practice because she had detention.
  3. Jyn was supposed to start thinking about university applications, apparently, and _record-setting number of detentions_ weren’t exactly what they were looking for.
    1. (Except Jyn wasn’t sure she even _had_ the record, because _Han Solo_ existed, the barmy git.)
  4. Krennic was an arsehole that continued to exist.
  5. Jyn was failing English.
  6. She was being called to the office, for reasons unknown, which was always a bad sign. It definitely wasn’t to accept any kind of _humanitarian_ award.



-:-

Jyn sprawled herself in her usual chair outside the administration offices, leaning back in her chair with her arms crossed, like she was prepping for a fight. She recalled her usual speech, tried to think of an alibi for yesterday’s fight. She caught sight of her cut knuckles and tucked them under her thighs. 

At least she didn’t need to worry about a call home. Saw hadn’t kept a consistent phone number since the police figured out how to trace them in the early 2000s. Better administrations had tried and failed to contact him. Sometimes he still caught wind of it; Lyra, her late mother, had apparently got into scores of trouble alongside Saw as they grew. Jyn seemed to be penance for it.

No, she had no reason to worry about parents or guardians. The only one she was worried about was Bodhi. Her adoptive brother, who was sweet and kind and gentle, who hadn’t been to the inside of any office except probably to accept a humanitarian award, would probably be  _ disappointed  _ in her, which was on par with sad puppies or a punch to the gut.

“Erso.” It was Deputy Head Mothma, standing with her arms crossed in her office doorway. “Come in, please.”

Jyn released her fist carefully under her thigh then stood, shouldering her backpack and entering the office. She moved like it was death row, not a Deputy Head’s office. Mothma usually handled academic issues, not fighting, so why the hell was she pulling Jyn into her office? Maybe Organa, who she usually dealt with, had finally given up on her. That seemed likely. It was the usual strategy for dealing with Jyn Erso. 

But Jyn stopped cold in the doorway when she saw the office wasn’t empty. Cassian Andor occupied one of the seats facing Mothma’s desk and raised his eyes to her, like she wasn’t what he expected either. 

And then the fire alarm  _ screamed _ , bright and loud and somehow red in its noise. 

Wait – no. It wasn’t the fire alarm at all. It wasn’t even out loud; the alarm was in her head, and almost like a police siren.

-:-

Jyn’s revised list of  _ fucking  _ problems:

  1. Her wrist was kind of sore from Trooper’s helmet of a skull. 
  2. Jyn was failing English.
  3. She was being called to the office, for reasons unknown, and Cassian _Andor_ was there, and his eyes were so, _unbelievably_ brown. 



-:-

Jyn shifted her eyes away from Andor, like she wasn’t hearing fireworks pop off in her head. She didn’t know if they were celebratory or a warning.

Sitting down in the chair Mothma indicated, she crossed her arms and slouched deeply, knees pressing up against Mothma’s desk. Mothma raised her eyebrows, either at the uniform violation (jeans) or the general demeanor (slouching, arms crossed, scowling), but she didn’t call her on it. Mothma had better things to do, apparently.

“I’m sorry to pull you from your morning classes,” Mothma said and Jyn kept her neutral face, because  _ of course _ that was where she’d been. Not in the hallway, blowing off said class. “I only wanted to talk for a few minutes. It’s about the reports I’ve been getting from your teachers, regarding your standings in class.”

Mystery solved. Good thing Jyn had no plans on becoming a detective.

But Cassian was there. And Mothma said  _ your,  _ plural ‘your’, referring to both of them. She glanced sideways at him. Maybe boy scout had a dark side. 

_ That  _ was the wrong thing to think, bringing up images of those hands on her jeans, slipping from her knees to her thighs, and maybe she  _ should  _ try out the uniform skirts because maybe they  _ did  _ have some advantages – 

Jyn slammed the door shut on those thoughts and turned to Mothma, who was still speaking.

“Cassian, you expressed an interest in getting some help,” Mothma said, “And Jyn, this will benefit you as well.”

Spit it  _ out _ , Mothma. 

“Cassian, you’re the top in your English class, which is a subject in which Jyn struggles. Jyn, you’re the top in your Physics class, in which Cassian struggles. I suggest you tutor each other.”

-:-

Jyn’s list of  _ fucking problems: _

  1. Cassian Andor was now her… tutor. 
  2. Cassian _Andor_ was now her _tutor_.
  3. _Cassian Andor was now her tutor._
  4. _AND SHE WAS EXPECTED TO TUTOR HIM IN RETURN_.



-:-

“Only you would make an hour spent with your crush ever week a crisis,” Bodhi said, albeit fondly. Her brother was sitting on a stool, eating his sandwich very neatly. Bodhi wasn’t comfortable with hijacking Malbus’ class during lunch, since it was a direct violation of the “everyone must eat lunch in the lunch room” rule, but Jyn knew how to spot an un-enforceable rule from a mile away. What were they gonna do, take attendance for the whole student body?

Jyn sputtered at the comment, turning her glare on Bodhi. She  _ did not  _ have a crush on Cassian Andor, fellow Year 11, who had transferred to their school the year previous, and had the thickest eyelashes she’d ever seen. She just – noticed him. A little more. Than other people. Like the way he seemed to have a different book every time she saw him, and how those books weren’t just in  _ English _ , but also  _ Spanish _ , and she was pretty certain she’d seen him reading in  _ French _ , once, okay? That was impressive for anyone. Imagining Cassian Andor switch languages as easily as breathing  _ wasn’t _ something that made her mouth all dry. It was just a  _ thing  _ about  _ him  _ that she’d  _ noticed _ . Like how she’d noticed his hands, all long-fingered and smooth; how she’d noticed the way he always said “may I” instead of “can I” when he wanted to go to the washroom, like an absolute  _ nerd _ ; the way he didn’t raise his hand that often in class, but when he spoke, you  _ listened _ , because whatever he was about to say was going to be good.

Jyn Erso didn’t have a crush. Cassian Andor was just… noticeable. Very, very noticeable. 

“I don’t have  _ crush _ ,” Jyn spoke around a mouthful of peanut butter sandwich. She was sitting on the workbench, legs crossed. She liked the shop. It was her favourite class, besides Physics, and she liked being surrounded by sharp objects. “I hate English. I don’t want to spend  _ more  _ time on it.”

“Uh-huh,” Bodhi said, knowing better to push it further than that. “Hey are you still good to wait after school on Wednesday? Tryouts are until five.”

“Yeah,” Jyn said, waving him off with her sandwich in hand. “No worries.”

It was only fair; he hung around for her hockey practices, so she didn’t mind waiting for him. They took the tube and a bus to school, but outside of peak hours, the bus was a pain to wait around for. Saw had left them a beat-up, absolute  _ monster _ of a car, not dissimilar from the security vehicles that drove the queen around, like modern tanks on wheels. No part of Jyn would be surprised if Saw had a tank.

They avoided driving it, however, because firstly, neither of them had a license, and secondly, it was more of a hassle. It was easier to take the late bus, even if it meant passing through the bus station around the corner from their flat. That transit center was likely the stabbing capital of the UK, so it was best to avoid it after dark. 

Bodhi had been on the athletics team since his first year of high school; he was a sure thing for the team. This year, he was trying out for the senior’s team for the first time, having been too chicken to go for it the year previous. Jyn had every confidence in him, despite barely understanding the sport herself. All Jyn knew was that Bodhi would go for runs for  _ hours _ , lost up in that head of his, and would come back barely winded. They’d be idiots not to take him. 

“You should try out for something,” Bodhi said, “There aren’t many people trying out, I don’t think they even have enough to cut anyone.”

“Gee,  _ thanks _ .”

“That’s not what I meant,” Bodhi said, dodging the little piece of sandwich Jyn threw. “You’re not a bad distance runner. Or even mixed relays or something.”

“No way,” Jyn said, “I’ve got hockey  _ and _ tutoring now. I’ll be the most social candidate the Physics department looks at.”

“You know, there’s other reasons to join clubs than to get it on a college and job applications,” Bodhi said.

“ _ Sure _ .”

“They’re fun!” Bodhi said, then, a bit slyly, “They teach you valuable things. Like  _ self discipline. _ ”

Jyn threw another piece of sandwich at him, which he was quick enough to dodge. Whatever. She’d steal all his dresser drawers and hide them later, or something.

“Erso,” the gruff voice had them looking up. Bodhi jumped. Malbus walked into his classroom, lunch bag under his arm. “Chirrut wants to see you on your spare.”

“Sure,” Jyn said, watching him consider them, like he was trying to figure out if they were trying to steal his hammers or harm the bandsaw. Apparently satisfied, he turned around and lumbered to his office, where he would shut the door and eat in peace. Ratting them out would probably be too much work. She grinned as soon as the door was shut. 

Malbus was alright. He didn’t take her shit, and he didn’t treat her like a child. One time, back when she had his class last block in Year 10, she’d skipped it eight days in a row. She was picking up shifts at the grocery store job she had. Galen’s cheque hadn’t come, and Saw off the grid,  _ again _ , and she and Bodhi needed to  _ eat _ . Luckily, Saw returned eventually, and Galen’s cheque had appeared within hours. Saw stayed for a strangely long stretch that time, one that no one really mentioned. It must’ve affected him in  _ some  _ way, though he didn’t really show it, aside from the length of his stay afterwards, and the credit card. He set up a credit card for them, despite the fact he’d once told Jyn that he didn’t trust banks; she suspected the card itself was attached to some off-shore bank, because tellers always gave her a funny look when she presented it, but it always went through.

When Jyn had returned to class after that eight day streak, she’d marched into his office, determined to defend herself. She didn’t get a out before Malbus cut her off, putting, of all things, a bag of homemade blueberry muffins between them. He told her what she missed in class and, right before he missed her, asked a question that kind of broke her heart. 

“You’re safe?” He’d asked, looking at her with concern in his eyes that made her squirm, just a little.

“Yeah,” she said, “We’re safe. I promise.”

Malbus nodded and never mentioned it again.

She swallowed the rest of her sandwich, just as the warning bell rang. She slipped off the bench with Bodhi; usually, she’d take her sweet time getting to class, but she had her spare, so she set off for Imwe’s office. Waving goodbye to Bodhi, she headed in the opposite direction, towards the dance studio.

Chirrut’s office was tucked away from the main office, with a dark waiting room that had a little fountain that filled the space with quiet burbling throughout the day. Jyn didn’t get the chance to sink into one of the squishy grey couches, however, because Chirrut appeared as soon as she’d entered, waving her in.

“Good afternoon, Jyn,” he said.

“Chirrut,” Jyn returned, blunt but warmer than her usual fare. Chirrut was actually a social worker by trade, so he didn’t require students to call him by his last name. Jyn watched Chirrut buzz around his office, prepping his usual cup of tea. He set a cup for her in front of her and she nearly smiled. It was green tea, rather than her preferred black tea. It was his first gentle admonishment. He knew about the fight with Trooper.

“How have you been, Jyn?” Chirrut asked calmly, stirring his tea. But Jyn knew this play. He would make small talk before rounding to the reason they were  _ actually  _ there.

“I punched Trooper in the face because he was picking on a year 7. That Finn kid. And I don’t regret or feel bad about it.”  _ And  _ her knuckles were still kind of sore, which she figured was punishment enough, but she knew better than to be looking for pity here, of all places. Jyn waited patiently for Imwe’s verdict. He always decided her punishments (he called them “consequences”) for whatever she’d gotten up to.

When Chirrut said nothing, Jyn felt the need to continue, “It was my first fight this year, come on. I barely even hit the guy. Just the once.”

“It’s September, so don’t get ahead of yourself,” Chirrut warned, then paused. “You did deliberately choose not to escalate the fight further. I spoke with Trooper, and he agrees that you hit him once, and once only.” Chirrut nodded. “It shows restraint,” he allowed, “More than you used to. However, you were still  _ violent _ .” He paused, and then said, very carefully, “I tried to get in contact with your guardian about this. I left a couple messages.”

“He got them,” Jyn told him easily. She wasn’t lying. Saw never answered his phone, but he always checked the inbox. “I guess he didn’t realize you wanted him to call back. He talked to me about it.” That was a lie. He hadn’t. He  _ probably _ would, but not in the way Chirrut wanted. “I’m grounded for a month,” she tacked on, because she was fairly certain that was what normal guardians did. Jyn had gotten pretty good at lying about the role Saw played in her life, between the many teachers and counsellors and those social services types that always seemed to sniff her out. 

Jyn wasn’t willing to out Saw’s parenting skills (or lack thereof). Her situation was good, compared to a lot of others. She knew how to navigate it. She didn’t want to trade it in for something potentially worse – especially if it meant they split her and Bodhi up.

Chirrut was quiet for a moment. Jyn wasn’t sure how many of her stories about Saw that he bought; she suspected none of them. He decided to change course, however, knowing a dead horse when he saw it. “Why didn’t you go get help, if you saw Trooper picking on this other boy?”

“It would’ve taken too long,” Jyn said. She also hadn’t thought about  _ that,  _ in the moment. “One punch and it as done with.”

“For Trooper, maybe,” Chirrut said. “But now you’re stuck talking to me, days later.” Chirrut smiled. Jyn snorted.

“You got me there,” Jyn agreed, even though she didn’t  _ really  _ mind talking to Chirrut. Not that much. 

-:-

Jyn lived in a flat with Bodhi twenty minutes from the school, in a shabby area that most people called the Hole, because it was where most things went to die. The building had a neon sign advertising its name, with three letters burnt out so it actually said JD, and was attached to a hotel that advertised-by-the-hour pricing. There was a reason Jyn didn’t bring any friends over.

Despite outwards appearances, their actual flat wasn’t too bad. It was small, sure, and old, but it was tidy. The furniture was sturdy, if second-hand, and there were enough little personal touches – books, warm blankets, a smattering of photos balanced against lamps and taped to the walls – that it felt homey. 

As Jyn dropped her backpack on the little bench by the door, her eyes went automatically to the space beside it, looking for mud-stained military-style boots. There weren’t any in sight. Saw had been gone for a full week, which was edging towards the usual length of his stay. Usually he stayed away for anywhere from ten to fourteen days, give or take a week. It still irritated Jyn on occasion. She valued the independence she’d learned, but Saw could at least leave a reliable bloody phone number. 

While Jyn glared at the empty space beside the door, Bodhi set to cooking, carefully laying out all the ingredients before starting. Bodhi was very methodical in his cooking and had a tendency to bake when stressed. He also tended to leave little tell-tale piles of flour everywhere, and always forgot to wipe out the sink. But she didn’t complain. After all, his go-to strategy for dealing with stress was  _ much  _ healthier than hers. 

Bodhi took care of the cooking and Jyn the cleaning. It was for the best. You couldn’t burn a toilet by scrubbing it. 

Jyn left her place by the door to sulk against the kitchen wall, arms crossed and watching Bodhi. Before Bodhi, she’d survived mostly off peanut butter sandwiches. It was the only thing she could make, and Saw wasn’t about to make anything for her, since his parenting strategies were largely based off Darwin’s ideas. 

Saw was an unreliable guardian at best, neglectful at worst. At least Jyn had always had an independent streak; she’d done pretty well even in the ears before Bodhi turned up, swept into their lives by Saw with little explanation. It turned out that Bodhi was living proof that Saw did feel guilt, after all – Saw never would’ve adopted Bodhi if he hadn’t felt responsible for the imprisonment of his parents. Saw even drove him to visit them every few months. Bodhi said that Saw was quiet on the trips, but not in a cold way. Just a  _ Saw  _ way. 

When Saw swept Bodhi up from his warm, domestic home and dropped him into the Hole, Jyn learned quickly there was only one thing Bodhi really needed: someone to take care of. Bodhi had spent much of his youth watching worriedly as his parents made secretive plans, poured over them for so long they forgot to eat until he brought them food; his parents would leave and return in the middle of the night, so exhausted they wouldn’t make it to their bed, and Bodhi would drape blankets over them on the couches and the easy chairs.

Jyn was exactly what Bodhi needed and vise versa. Jyn, who was relatively helpless when it came to  _ actual  _ cooking, who needed someone to keep any eye on her to curb the worst of her impulses. Bodhi was what Jyn needed in return, his peaceful nature balancing out her instinctual ire. It was a good partnership they’d developed.

Jyn may not have had Saw in the way she always wanted (needed) him, but she had Bodhi, who was sure and gentle and kind. And their situation in general wasn’t terrible – their flat was in a sketchy area, sure, but Saw had installed several deadbolts on the door, and he sometimes sent his strange versions of care packages, full of spices and books and knick knacks with no return address or note. Saw checked in at least once a week, usually from an unknown or blocked number. He gave a shit, he was just good at hiding it.

Usually Bodhi insisted on Jyn setting the table, but sometimes, on days like today, when Saw had been gone for a while and they were bone-tired from school, he’d set the pan of whatever he’d made on a cold burner and hand Jyn a fork. Today was one of those days.

They stood in the kitchen and ate straight out of the pan, quiet for the first few minutes, too busy eating.

“So,” Bodhi said after a bit, lifting his hand to cover his mouth, just to be extra polite. Saw certainly didn’t teach him those manners. “What’d Mr. Imwe want?”

“Talk about my anger issues,” Jyn said, speaking around a mouthful of ground beef and bell peppers and pasta.  _ She’d _ learned her manners from Saw. “Why I punched Trooper.”

Bodhi looked at her, “Did you tell him about the bullying? Mr. Imwe could probably do something about that. Something longer term than hitting someone.” Chirrut insisted students call him by his first name, but Bodhi seemed unable. He seemed to be incapable of breaking the rules of common courtesy, which was a bit puzzling, since his parents and his adoptive guardian had all broken about fifty UN laws together.

Jyn made a face. Chirrut had suggested something similar, and she didn’t like the feeling that she had done something wrong. It had worked _long_ _term_ in one way. Trooper avoided her like wildfire in the halls now, the coward. “He knows.”

“Good,” Bodhi said, smiling. He’d been in her life since they were ten and Jyn was definitely a better person for it. Before he showed up, she was pretty sure she was half-feral, meeting anything she didn’t like with her fists. Now, after years with him, she only met  _ some  _ things she didn’t like with her fists. If that wasn’t character development, she didn’t know what was. 

But in all honesty – she didn’t know where she’d be without him. Probably a young offenders’ institution. Maybe  _ real _ jail, because she’d prove herself too much for that. 

Bodhi tossed his fork into the pan, straightening, “Now do the washing up.” 

His comment was a record scratch, interrupting all those mushy feelings rudely. Jyn glared. Bodhi laughed. 

Jyn cleaned all the dishes – not one of them matching, all crispped and rescued from various second-hand stores – before she went to their narrow living room. She picked up one of the blankets from the couch and wrapped it around her shoulders, walking up to the bookshelf on the wall. There were two photos on it – one was of Bodhi’s parents on their wedding day, smiling and holding one another; the other was of Lyra. Jyn paused in front of her mother, looking at her serious eyes. Jyn had a few photos of her mum, some from her dad, and some from Saw. Lyra always looked the same – she rarely smiled in photographs, and often looked serious, her eyes shining with mischief. Saw had told her once, three whiskeys in, that it was how she always looked: serious about something she was up to, about some protest she was holding, some rally she was organizing. At least Jyn knew where she got her righteousness from.

Galen hadn’t told her much about her mum at all. She was old enough to remember Lyra dying; it had been a relief, one that Jyn still felt guilty over, after endless hospital rooms and her body turning skeletal and the constant smell of bleach. Galen was gone before it all – he'd turned to long hours in his lab, coming home only on weekends, looking more and more gaunt each time Jyn saw him. 

When Saw appeared, Jyn knew before he spoke what had happened. She’d seen Galen at the funeral, but not much after. He sent her the occasional text and a monthly cheque and called it parenting – called it  _ grief _ . She could do without the text. 

She shook her head, suddenly teary. She scoffed at herself, a little aggressive, shoving her fists in her eyes as if to shove the tears back into their ducts.

“Coming up on it, aren’t we?”

Bodhi’s voice almost startled her, but she’d registered the creaking boards of their hallway somewhere in the back of her mind. She looked at him over her shoulder and opened her mouth, but nothing came out. She nodded instead.

Lyra had been dead for just shy of eight years. It still caught Jyn by the throat sometimes. She would get into a fight and Saw would send her the same kind of text, delayed and detached, and Galen would say nothing because he didn’t know about it, and Jyn would find herself wondering what her mother would do. Ground her? Yell? Cry? She honestly didn’t know. That part hurt more than anything – not remembering enough of her mother’s personality, before she wasted away in a hospital bed, too exhausted to laugh or speak, to guess what she would’ve said or done.

It wasn’t just the big things. Sometimes Bodhi would make a dinner with a recipe from his mother, and she would find herself teary halfway through, wondering if her mother would like it. She would get a haircut and think about how her mother would never experience the first shower afterwards again, when your hair felt so much lighter, so much easier to wash. She would skip the cracks in the sidewalk and wonder if her mother had heard the same nursery rhyme, had the same half-minded habit leftover from childhood. 

Bodhi came up beside her and strung his arm across her shoulders, leaning over to kiss her hair. Jyn shut her eyes and let herself feel sad, just for a minute. Just to let it out, just a little bit.

-:-

Wednesday rolled around. Jyn was going to miss the first bit of the tryouts, because of detention, but Imwe let her out early on good behaviour. She was also pretty sure it was because he wanted to get home to his husband.

Jyn headed out to the sideline, backpack strung on her back and phone in her hand. She wasn’t paying attention, texting Bodhi to see if he was done yet.

“Hey Jyn!”

Leia Organa was jogging towards her, wearing a fitted white tank top and high-waisted short shorts. Leia was a grade above Jyn, and on just about every sports team the school offered. She was at her most ferocious in rugby season, or maybe hockey, but she was still plenty scary holding the pole for pole vault. Along with all the sports, Leia was also their class president, and head of the Social Justice Club, as well as the brains behind using their foods class to support a local homeless shelter. 

Leia was the school golden girl, which was why it was so shocking last year, when she had backed her car into Jabba Hutt’s van. Let Jyn rephrase: Leia was the school golden girl, which was why it was so shocking when she  _ rammed her car into Jabba Hutt’s van seven times _ .

Leia probably could’ve passed the off the first hit as an accident, pleaded her case with insurance and got off easy with the school. But then Jabba called her a bitch, so she hit him again. And again. And four more times. There was talk of pressing charges, but they were ultimately dropped. Instead, Leia served detention for the rest of term, where Jyn met her, after her own run in with Fett. 

It was still a mystery why Leia hit Hutt’s car in the first place. At least it was according to the faculty. Jyn was fairly certain Hutt’s personality was explanation enough. 

“You trying out?” Leia asked her, holding the pole just above the ground. Jyn shook her head. 

“Waiting for Bodes,” Jyn said. Leia nodded. 

“We did most of the field events already. Just wrapped up pole vault,” Leia said, “Long jump’s next, then we move to running.”

“Cheers,” Jyn said. She dropped onto the grass bank, away from the odd clump of students there to support their friends, sitting and drawing her foot up beside her. 

Leia went to line up and Jyn scanned the small crowd for Bodhi – she didn’t know what he was talking about earlier. There must’ve been thirty kids mulling about, a good handful lining up to get ready. Bodhi wasn’t a jumper, so she wasn’t really paying attention to those at the sandpits, scanning the pack of students around the benches. 

But her attention was pulled when the handful of jumpers started to line up. The boys were going first, all tall and lanky, holding their feet or ankles in a stretch that seemed to be more for show. Their backs were to Jyn, but she could see them turning to speak to each other, shoving one another in the shoulder. 

The first boy to step up wasn’t doing any of the bullshit stretching or messing around. It was why he caught her eye – a point of stillness in the crowd of overeager boys. Jyn watched how he walked up to the starting line, standing tall and confident, before he suddenly shocked into a sprint. 

Jyn watched him run, his whole body smooth and powerful, and she almost thought she recognized him, but she was too focused on long limbs and strong legs as he planted his feet and  _ sprung _ , so high Jyn’s eyes widened a bit, her fingers closing into a fist around her phone, like she had half a mind to take a photo. But then he was falling, crashing down in a spray of sand before popping back up.

When did  _ long jump _ get so  _ hot _ ?

And then the jumper turned around, sizing up his own jump, and Jyn clamped down on her lip, realizing who she’d been checking out. Cassian looked critically at the mark he’d made in the sand, hands on his hips while his chest beat up and down. Jyn watched him as he turned, getting out of the way of the next jumper, who watched him carefully. He didn’t make it anywhere near Cassian did. The rest of the boys went, one at a time, but Jyn had her eyes on Cassian, who was standing where he’d landed. Only Luke Skywalker came close to Cassian’s jump, but he didn’t have the advantage of Cassian’s height. 

Then the girls started and Jyn tore her eyes away from him, telling herself that Leia  _ deserved  _ her support, dammit. She focused on Leia, watching Leia reduce herself to a streak of white, shooting through the air like a comet and landing past Cassian’s point. She popped up like he did, somehow more gracefully, taking his hand and smiling while she accepted his bro hug. 

“ _ That _ ,” said a new voice, coming up the bleachers towards her, “Was damn impressive.”

Han Solo appeared beside her, cigarette hanging from his mouth, dropping to sit in the grass. She’d seen him sitting on the sidelines, but hadn’t registered who he was. 

“I thought you’d be less annoying once you two started dating,” Jyn told him. Han scoffed. 

“If anything, that girl’s made me  _ worse _ ,” he said, but he was smirking, like he didn’t mind at all. “Did you see that? Shit, she’s like a superhero.”

Jyn rolled her eyes, ignoring Han as he went on about how amazing and hot his girlfriend was. It would’ve been cute, but it was still  _ Han _ .

The athletics events wrapped up as promised, and they lined up to run. Leia reappeared with a stopwatch; she was unofficial team captain. Jyn was pretty certain she’d nominated herself into the position last year, and no one was brave enough to argue. Leia set the athletes on drills, getting them to run shorter then longer races, timing them as she did so.

Jyn tried to keep her focus on Bodhi or Leia, but her eyes kept drifting to Cassian. He wasn’t an excellent sprinter, but he was pretty decent at long distance, finishing in the top three of their group. Leia, of course, was the best sprinter of both. Bodhi did well, too, just behind Cassian in the long distance, but beat him in sprints.

Jyn recognized a few others on the track. There were those freshmen, the brunette and that friend of hers Finn, as well as Melshi, who she  _ creamed _ in hockey PE last year, and she was pretty sure he was still sore about it. It wasn’t Jyn’s fault his neck had gotten in the way of her stick. Then, of course, Luke, who was Leia’s twin brother and  _ almost  _ as domineering in sports, but he was far too nice to share his sister’s competitive streak. 

She watched Leia gather them in a big circle, probably letting them know when the team would be posted. Jyn watched Han get up and descend the bleachers towards them, leaning on the railing at the bottom. Leia jogged up to him, smiling up, while Han leaned down to kiss her forehead, then pretended to gag at the sweat on her forehead. Leia laughed, punching him lightly in the thigh while Han looked down on her like she really  _ was  _ a superhero. 

Jyn rolled her eyes at the two of them, standing and descending the bleachers herself. Everyone else had already gone into the locker rooms to change, so Jyn went to the tunnel entrance, intent on waiting and dragging Bodhi away before he could start to socialize and take twice as long – and she ran promptly into Cassian.

“Shit,” Jyn said. 

At the same time, Cassian said, “Hey, Jyn.” She stopped, looking at him. His bangs were sticking to his forehead a little. His shorts only hit him mid-thigh.

“Hey,” she said, hiking her backpack up her shoulder, definitely  _ not  _ thanking Nike for whatever designer had put together the latest line of athletics merch. 

“Hey,” he said again, then bit the inside of his cheek. “I saw you, up there. Waiting for Bodhi?”

“Yeah,” Jyn willed her cheeks not to get pink.  _ You were too far away from him have  _ really  _ seen you and what you were looking at.  _ “I said I’d wait for him.”

“Cool,” Cassian said. He looked over her shoulder then back in her face, “Look, I know Mothma’s plan isn’t ideal,” he said, and Jyn felt her hackles raise. He seemed to sense it, because he changed tactics. “Are you free after school tomorrow? I’ve got a problem set due in a couple days that I’m kind of… lost on.”

Jyn studied him, relaxing just a little. “I have detention.” 

Cassian raised his eyebrows, then said, “After, maybe?”

Jyn shook her head, “Nah. Imwe will let me spend it helping you. Library?”

“Yeah, that works.”

“Cool,” Jyn said. Cassian hovered, apparently unsure what to do next. He looked over her shoulder, a bit determinedly, and opened his mouth. The creaky door of the boys’ locker room swung open and cut him off. Jyn could see Bodhi and Luke walk out over Cassian’s shoulder, the former raising his eyebrows. She knew what those eyebrows meant – they meant relentless teasing was in her future, if she didn’t get him away _now._

“See you then,” Jyn said, stalking towards Bodhi and grabbing his arm, yanking him after her. She ignored Bodhi’s indignant noise as she tugged him down the tunnel with her, and she could’ve sworn she felt eyes on her the whole time.

-:-

Summer was over. It was in the concrete. The concrete, which Jyn had spent the summer running barefoot on, tiptoeing and lurching for grass where it was burning-hot. But now the concrete was cool, almost cold.

Jyn pumped her foot against the ground again, pushing herself on her longboard on a leisurely pace after Bodhi on his own board. The setting sun was directly in front of them. Jyn swayed on her heels, board gently answering below her.

This was probably a bad idea. The road had broken glass and nails or whatever on it. But Jyn had had worse ideas and there was no one around to tell them no, and, anyways, it was habit of theirs, formed when they younger. For the moment, Jyn was grateful Saw wasn’t the type of parent to ground her. She would’ve gone nuts sitting inside on orders, especially when she’d been struck with a slush puppy craving soon after dinner. Bodhi was a sucker for them and was easy to convince to go with her. 

Her strappy flip flops hung loosely from her fingertips, her bare feet touching the ground with each pump. She watched Bodhi lean his weight, watching the curve it made in his board. It was all physics – all motion and force and momentum and energy. That was something Jyn didn’t understand about her classmates, when they whined about  _ when are we ever going to use this in real life _ ? Right now, she wanted to say, and sometimes did. Right now, when you’re longboarding in the middle of the road, on your way to the corner store for slush puppies. Right now, when you’re negotiating your balance with gravity and your weight and the road. Right now, when you’re taking a deep breath out, your lungs pressing the air out of you, your pulse pumping oxygenated blood through your veins.

She liked it because it was reliable. Physics was always the same. It could always be broken down, to exist in the same ways it always had. There was probably some connection to childhood trauma there, but Jyn didn’t care enough to make it.

Jyn didn’t know what she wanted to do after school, but she knew what she  _ didn’t  _ want to do – she  _ didn’t  _ want to end up like Saw, living off the grid  _ probably  _ out of necessity; she didn’t want to be like Galen, locked away in a lab all hours of the day, sleeping under his desk because he cared more about his work than anything; she didn’t even want to be Lyra, who had worked almost as much as Galen. 

She knew she wanted to work with physics for the rest of her life. Getting her Masters, or even her PhD, had crossed her mind. Jyn knew she was smart enough for it, knew she worked hard enough for it (despite whatever shit Krennic would say). 

She just didn’t know if she was...  _ human enough.  _ She wasn’t particularly social or easy-going. She wasn’t particularly  _ resilient _ , more likely to punch a problem than try to solve it. She wasn’t good at talking to people and being honest. She wasn’t even good at relaxing, always getting the urge to run or work or longboard barefoot to the corner store, instead of sit still for a moment. She was terrified that brought her closer to a destiny like Saw or Galen’s. 

Sometimes Jyn still felt like a child. Not in the wondrous, anything is possible, curious kind of way – she was too young for this. She felt so achingly young that it hurt sometimes, to think about everything that was expected of her and weighted on her. Jyn always felt on-edge. She was too much. She was not enough. It was easier to punch someone and call it a day. It was easier to drift on her board, drinking a cherry-red slush puppy with her flip flops dangling between her fingers, the sunset bright and orange in front of her.

-:-

Cassian was already waiting at a table in the library when she got there. She wasn’t even  _ late.  _ She’d talked to Imwe on her spare, specifically so she wouldn’t be (shut  _ up _ , Bodhi). And he still beat her there, spread out on the best table in the library, the one next to the sunniest window, looking like he’d been there forever.

Jyn took a breath and stalked towards him, dropping her bag loudly on the table. Cassian looked up and raised his eyebrows, almost scolding. Jyn crashed herself into the chair across from him just as noisily. They sized one another up for a moment, neither quite sure what to do. His face was impressively symmetrical. 

Jyn lurched forward to look at the booklet he was working on. She recognized it as Kenobi’s, the kind he gave out to everyone on the first day of each new unit. Jyn could see a lot of eraser marks in the open space below questions, turning the page a light grey.

“Kinematics?” She asked, glancing back at him for confirmation.

“Yeah,” Cassian confirmed, running a hand through his hair. “Just started it.”

Jyn hummed, leaning over, “Alright, where’s your formula sheet?”

It wasn’t a painful as Jyn expected, honestly. She did a couple of the problems, talking through how  _ she  _ would do them, then let Cassian do the rest. He wasn’t bad; his math was usually right, it was he just had a habit of making mistakes at the start, and not referring to his formula sheet as much as he should.

“You’re good at this,” Cassian said, smiling at her as they finished the first problem set. Her stomach did  _ not _ flutter; in fact, the only time butterflies had tried to appear in her stomach, they were rapidly destroyed by the acid in there. She’d obviously just eaten something wonky. 

“Physics? Should hope so. It’s in my genes.”

“Your parents were professors, right?” Jyn looked at him, somewhat startled. Half at the knowledge, half at the tense. “You, uh, mentioned it. On the first day in English, when we did those dumb scavenger hunts?”

Jyn remembered. She was just surprised  _ he  _ did.

Krennic had made them do  _ ice breakers _ on the first day, because he was an asshole, and deadset on making all his students miserable. Everyone had this checklist, and everyone had to find a different person in the class who applied to something on that checklist. Cassian had asked her if her parents worked off continent, and Jyn had said if dead counts being off continent. The answer for Galen was a straight  _ yes _ . It had made him laugh, in a startled way that Jyn liked. Anyone else would’ve cringed at her answer, but he’d laughed, nothing more than a sharp exhalation through his nose, eyebrows popping up. She remembered that laugh.

“Yeah, I remember,” Jyn said, watching him carefully. A beat, and then she asked, “How can you like English so much, anyways? Krennic is such an asshole.”

Cassian cringed, looking to the table, “Krennic ruins it in a lot of ways, yeah. But – English isn’t my first language. And I think learning it the way I did gave me a different appreciation for it.” Then he looked up at her, through his  _ impossibly  _ thick eyelashes. “And I like stories.”

Jyn raised an eyebrow. “Stories?”

“Yeah,” he said, almost bashful, but still certain. “They’re hopeful. That hope’s important.”

Cassian Andor saying that, blinking with those impossibly thick eyelashes – she remembered that, too.

-:-

Jyn was right. Saw checked in, eventually. 

(1) NEW MESSAGE

FROM: UNKNOWN NUMBER

u punch some1 ?

SENT MESSAGE

TO: UNKNOWN NUMBER

yeah he deserved it

(1) NEW MESSAGE

FROM: UNKNOWN NUMBER

K

-:-

Cassian’s words kind of got stuck in her head. She started to see what he meant – not in books, but in Maths and Physics. There was a reliability to the subjects that she liked; that they were black and white, right and wrong. But behind Maths and Physics, there was  _ curiosity _ – a deep desire to understand the world around them. There was something hopeful there – a belief they  _ could _ understand, if they just listened, if they just tried.

She found herself thinking about it in detention. She was supposed to be helping clean the trophy cases, but her mind kept wandering, and it was Skywalker’s turn to cover detention, which meant he was sitting in his office next door reading.

“Where have  _ you  _ gone?” Leia’s voice drew Jyn back in, making her blink as she took in the words. Tarkin had handed Leia a detention for talking back in class; apparently, he’d made some remark about Han, and she’d informed him she thought she’d recognized his stench when he walked in.

“Just thinking,” Jyn said, shrugging her off and returning to scrubbing the trophies. Leia’s name was already on half these plaques and, knowing Leia, she probably had goals to get on all of them before she graduated.

Leia hummed, watching her knowingly. Her hair was pulled into a braid crown and she was sitting on the desk, not even pretending to work. Skywalker had a soft spot a mile wide for her, so she didn’t have much motivation to work, either. Jyn was pretty sure it was because the two were so similar. 

“Hey, do you want to come over for a sleepover?” Leia asked, leaning her elbow on her desk. “Maybe Friday?”

Jyn’s eyes jumped to her in surprise. She’d never been asked to a sleepover before; it was a foreign concept, one reserved for movies about American teenagers. Not Londoners with anger issues. 

“Come on,” Leia said. “We’ll eat a ton of junk food and watch horror movies. It’ll be fun.”

Stopping herself from thinking about any of the complications – like how Leia lived in a literal mansion, and her father was a  _ Deputy Head _ , and what she’d tell Bodhi – Jyn found herself nodding. “Alright. Sounds like fun.”

Leia’s smile was glittering, “Yes! It’ll be so fun. We can talk shit.”

And then Jyn was smiling too, because talking shit was familiar territory. She said, “I’ll bring pretzels.”

-:-

Jyn stood in her narrow bedroom, looking over the mess it was in with a critical eye. She wasn’t about to  _ clean _ . She was trying to pack for her sleepover. But she’d never been to one and wasn’t sure what to bring. Just an overnight bag? She probably wasn’t going to shower, right? Did she need to bring her own sleeping bag or pillow, or would Leia have some for her?

“Staring at it isn’t going to help anything,” Bodhi said carefully from her doorway, watching her watch the mess of her room. He was digging into one of those yogurts he loved so much. It was like, his fourth of the day. Weirdo.

“Shut up,” Jyn said, looking over at him. “Leia’s asked me for a sleepover. I don’t know what to bring.” The last part was said through a twisted mouth, embarrassed for it, but still admitting it, because it was  _ Bodhi _ .

“Have you asked her?” Bodhi said gently, not a trace of mocking in his voice. Jyn looked over at him. “I mean, I asked Cassian. He says he has everything I need.”

Jyn nodded, glancing around for her phone. If it wasn’t  _ weird  _ to ask…

And then her brain caught up with the rest of it and she swung her eyes to Bodhi, “What?”

Bodhi smirked, “Cassian invited some of the guys from the team over. Don’t worry,”  _ now  _ his tone turned teasing, already backing out of the room, “I’ll run recon for you.”

Jyn flipped him off.

-:-

Leia’s entire house was well-summarized in the basement couch they’d settled into: the very definition of luxury, wide and soft and sprawling. The  _ size  _ of Leia’s house had terrified Jyn at first, stopped her in her tracks and made her taste the stale air of her tiny flat, but it was short-lived. Leia had appeared, complaining about Han in a familiar annoyed tone, ready to bite his head off, lest he appear.

They had taken over the basement, bowls of every kind of crisp and candy surrounding them with Jyn’s pretzel back empty of even the little broken pieces at the bottom. Halfway through a horror film – the kind where the would-be female victim turned on the killers, aka, the  _ best kind _ – they were sprawled out on the couch together, Jyn in her softest sweatpants and Leia with half a dozen little braids in her hair, and counting.

Leia and Jyn cheered as the heroine buried an axe in her would-be murderer’s stomach, yanking it out to hit him again. 

“We would be excellent in a horror movie,” Leia said as the heroine smashed the axe into the guy’s head.

“Damn straight,” Jyn agreed, curling her legs up beneath her.

Jyn had spent a long time afraid of girls in the way only other girls could be. She was intimidated by them because she never felt like she was  _ enough  _ – feminine enough, cool enough, pretty enough (to her chagrin). She didn’t  _ want  _ to care about these things, but they were so brutally bashed into her skull by every piece of media she saw – it wore her down, over the years. Jyn felt pitted against the women around her; called into a competition she hadn’t wanted to be part of, just because of her gender.

But what those ads and companies didn’t tell you was that girls weren’t actually like that – they weren’t actively rooting against one another. They weren’t trying to tear each other down for their own gain. They were all facing the same horrible measure of  _ enough _ . Once they stopped fighting it, once they stopped believing they had to compete, once they accepted women into their hearts – they discovered how much more was there.

This was what was there: endless junk food and hair braiding, giggling over nothing and everything all at once. This was what was there: the knowledge that you are more than enough, you were always more than enough. This was what was there: an intimate knowing that, once found, is recognized in women everywhere, a silver cord that connected every woman on earth over and over and over again, like they were all speaking the same language, or humming the same old, beloved song.

-:-

Jyn returned home the next day exhausted, slumped forward but still smiling, somehow. They’d crashed around four, and Leia’s mum had woke them at around ten, with a gentle, strangely motherly call that Jyn had somehow forgotten. Her mother used to do the same. Lyra used to do the same.

When she dropped her boots on the mat, she didn’t miss the military lace-ups already there. 

“Gerrera,” she said without looking at him as she entered the kitchen. He was at the kitchen table; she kept him in the corner of her eye while she went into the kitchen and went for the coffee maker, plucking out a stained mug first. 

“Erso,” he returned, as close to warmth in his voice as he would get. Jyn found the coffee pot already full, darker than night. She dumped some into her cup, the coffee sloshing over her sides. She shook her hand at her side, spraying coffee everywhere, and finally looked over at Saw. He was cleaning his nails with a knife, flicking the gunk he unearthed onto the floor. Always a charmer.

“How was your,” she paused for affect, raising her eyebrows, “Business trip?” Read:  _ latest criminal escapade _ ?

Saw grunted, staying on his nails. 

Jyn watched him for another moment. “Don’t you want to know where Bodhi is?”

“I know where he is,” Saw said, still not looking at her. “That boy, Andor’s house. And you were at the Organa’s. Did you know that Leia was arrested at fourteen? She broke into Parliament and smashed a carton of eggs on one of those Tories.”

Jyn took a moment to imagine it: a smaller, just-as-righteous version of Leia, rushing parliament armed with raw eggs.

“Good for her,” Jyn said. Saw did that thing, where his cheek twitched, and it almost became a smile. Jyn watched him for a second longer, looking for any kind of clue of where he’d gone. Of where he always went when he disappeared for weeks at a time. When he disappeared from  _ them _ for weeks at a time.

She felt resentment bubble up, cold and familiar. Jyn turned from him, shaking her shoulders as if to shake it off. She went to the fridge and opened it, just looking for something to do. It was near empty. She and Bodhi would need to go shopping soon.

Jyn closed the fridge again, pushing her fingers into her hair, into the braids Leia had made, starting to unravel them. She turned to the cabinets, knowing all she was looking for was an excuse not to talk to Saw. She would march back to her room but she – and her mind stuttered on the thought, her insistence she didn’t  _ need  _ him was so entrenched in her mind. She would march back to her room, but she wanted to stay around Saw. Just to see him. Just to talk. 

“Galen’s been asking about you.”

Just  _ not about that _ .

“I’ll cash his cheque once I get it,” Jyn said, turning out of the kitchen. But Saw was speaking before she could escape.

“He wants to come around.”

“Mom’s anniversary is coming up,” Jyn said, abrupt and too loud. She turned around to stare directly at him in a challenge. Saw finally looked at her, pausing on her face before returning to his knife.

He dropped it, remaining silent. Jyn knew he would. Lyra was their safe word.

-:-

Bodhi returned a few hours later, immediately sensing the tense atmosphere. As he always did, he smoothed the taut ropes between Jyn and Saw, easing them into a fragile détente. It was his superpower, to be able to calm even the prickliest porcupines like Saw and Jyn. When Saw wasn’t around, he even made a few sly comments about his own sleepover – mentioning video games in passing, or buying a brand of juice that  _ Cassian  _ apparently had in his fridge when they went shopping. But Jyn held firm and didn’t ask. 

… _ Until  _ Monday. She lasted a whole couple days, and it was mostly her pride that had held her tongue, refusing to give in to Bodhi’s knowing smiles. She finally cracked in the hall on the way to gym, waiting at Bodhi’s locker for him to get his stuff for class. Jyn was leaned against the locker next to his, rolling her head to watch him slide his backpack meticulously inside.

Jyn looked up just in time to see Cassian turn the corner, walking with his friend Kay, a lanky kid Jyn had been on mathletes with last year. She’d been serving a kind of....  _ penance _ , the only kind Chirrut could dream up, but the bruise to her ego had been iced with the knowledge of just how  _ fun  _ it was to get under Kay’s skin. 

Cassian spotted her and smiled, just a little. Jyn found herself returning the smile, crossing her arms a little more tightly. 

Bodhi looked up just as he passed, doing the head nod- hand slap combo that all boys knew, “Hey, man.” 

“Bodhi,” Cassian said, returning the gesture, before his eyes jumped back to Jyn. She was meeting Cassian after school for tutoring again. Physics had never made her so nervous before.

Cassian and Kay moved on. Jyn heard Kay loudly start up some conversation about some  _ Shakespeare  _ they’d been reading, the nerds. Cassian glanced over his shoulder at her in a way that made her toes curl. 

“What do boys even do at sleepovers?” Jyn blurted, not looking at her brother.

Bodhi laughed, “Wouldn’t  _ you  _ like to know.”

“ _ Bodes _ ,” Jyn said, elbowing him. “God, never mind.”

“We played video games,” Bodhi said, “Ate a lot of junk food. He asked about you, actually.”

He said it so causally that Jyn knew he’d prepared dropping that bomb all weekend. She didn’t want to give him the satisfaction, but also couldn’t help the, “ _ What?”  _ That popped involuntarily out of her mouth.

Bodhi smiled, wide and full. “Sorry, bro code.”

Jyn glared at him, finally settling on a punch to his arm as an appropriate punishment. “I should be your  _ bro  _ before him, you  _ ass _ .”

-:-

On the last Friday of September, they had a presentation in second about drugs, or something. Jyn had every intention of skiving off, but Bodhi had appeared and dragged her along, and then  _ promptly ditched her _ for  _ Luke Skywalker _ , which was not a betrayal she was about to forget – and then Cassian Andor sat next to her.

“Hey,” he said, and Jyn was so, so glad that she was not one of those people whose mouths stopped working because they were in the presence of… well, the Cassian Andors of the world. 

“Hey,” she said back, sounding cooler than she felt. Then the presentation started, and Jyn had  _ no  _ idea what they talked about, because she’d gotten a C plus in English that morning and Krennic’s face had been  _ hilarious _ , and Cassian had given her a thumb’s up. Now, Cassian had crossed his arms. His elbow relaxed and rested against hers, where it stayed the whole presentation.

-:-

Then it was October, and October meant one thing.

The day of, Jyn remembered what day it was before she even woke up. It was like she had dreamt of it before she woke and now the dream was following her into reality, where it waited for her. She wasn’t totally luckless, because Bodhi was waiting for her there, too. 

They skived off school. Saw had disappeared again a few days earlier, as was his custom around  _ that  _ day. Jyn had never seen him in grief, but she knew he grieved. She knew it like she knew her own last name, or she knew her own grief would come. Or she knew that Lyra had died eight years ago on that day.

They walked to the cemetery, where they kneeled in the wet grass in front of Lyra’s grave. Jyn looked down at her jeans instead of directly at the headstone, feeling strangely self-conscious about the rip in her pants. Mothers were supposed to criticize ripped jeans; they were supposed to lovingly mock teenage trends. They were supposed to be around to have the chance.

Bodhi took off his backpack and laid it on his knees. “Hello, Mrs. Erso.” He always said it like that. So formally. Jyn was sure Lyra would’ve liked him, though it was probably more a factor of Jyn’s own love for Bodhi, than her knowledge of Lyra.

Bodhi took out a Tupperware container of homemade snickerdoodles, which made Jyn smile. They were Lyra’s favourite. He always made them for today, with Lyra’s own recipe. They split the cookies while Jyn looked at the grave and told Bodhi about her mom.

She usually told the same stories, the same facts. On Jyn’s seventh birthday, her mother had decorated the house with  _ far  _ too many balloons. Lyra’s favourite colour was green. When Jyn was little, she would take her on long walks around London, bringing her with her to find shortcuts, over and over and over again. Lyra was addicted to shortcuts. She looked for them everywhere – when she was on foot, when she was driving, even when she was taking the tube. It was like she had known her time was short, and wanted to get everywhere faster.

Afterwards, when it began to rain and she and Bodhi left, they returned to the flat to find Saw there. It was uncharacteristic for him to appear today of all days. But it wasn’t every day that Lyra Erso had been dead for eight years.

Saw didn’t say anything to her. He walked up to her and set his hand on her cheek. It was the most tender thing he’d ever done. 

Once he told her that she had her mother’s spirit. He’d said they were both  _ all trouble, backed by love _ .

-:-

As Jyn opened her locker the next day, a bag of Rancheritos fell out. It was the same kind that Cassian had started to bring to their weekly tutoring sessions, which Jyn had developed an intense addiction to. 

There was a sticky note taped to it. Jyn recognized the scrawl before she even read the note. 

_ No tutoring required _ . 

She bit her tongue, but it wasn’t enough to stop her from smiling. She placed the crisp bag back inside before turning on her heel and heading for the locker rooms. The usual crowd was already there, along with a few new faces – there was Ahsoka Tano in the year below her, who played defense; Maz, who was all offense; Leia’s friend Amilyn, who was the head behind their strategy; and a few new girls – that girl Rey and her friend Rose, sharing their locker with Jannah. Jyn was glad to see so many new girls. The team was mostly graduating students last year, and it had gutted them.

Shockingly, Jyn had  _ not  _ been strong-armed into joining hockey. Body checking someone while holding a weapon was appealing enough on its own. 

Jyn changed quickly and jogged out to the field, finding Leia already surveying it, hands on her hips. She had become captain for their hockey team in much the same way as she had for the athletics team – mostly through self-declaration.

“Laps,” Leia said, glaring at the girls’ locker room door. Jyn was first out there, and Leia was clearly not happy about it.

“Bell just rang,  _ Coach _ ,” Jyn said, hands on her hips with enough emphasis on the address that Leia raised a manicured eyebrow at her. “Cut them some slack.”

Then she turned and started her laps, ignoring Leia’s look. They had taken the field for their practice, so the athletics team had moved up to the cement path circle the school, appearing periodically in their warm up jog. Leia had set them on a circuit before returning to the hockey team. Jyn glanced over and told herself she was looking for Bodhi.

She watched as the athletics team finished their laps and trickled past them, starting to stretch on the far end of the field. Jyn turned her eyes forward and focused on her lap around the field, and not on the feeling of eyes watching her go. 

She turned the corner and continued onto the goal line, rounding the net and glancing back at the locker rooms. Girls were streaming out now, joining her in their own laps. Jyn had missed tryouts – she’d been busy planting her fist in Trooper’s face, then getting hauled off to the principal’s office – but Leia had still let her on the team. Jyn was lucky. Jyn had also been the top scorer last season, so maybe Leia was just smart.

Jyn rounded to the side of the field the athletics team was warming up on. She didn’t look, but she heard the light footsteps coming up on her left, felt him settle in beside her. Jyn looked over her shoulder first, spotting the athletics team breaking off slowly to start their own laps. She looked up at Cassian, suppressing her smile, before she faced forward again. 

“Bodhi told me about yesterday,” Cassian said. Jyn looked at him again. 

She said, “Thanks for the crisps.” She looked forward again and considered him in her mind’s eye. He was so much taller than her; she’d never really noticed it before. It didn’t seem like an obstacle. More like… a challenge.

He left crisps in her locker, which meant he somehow  _ broke  _ into her locker. Stupidly, the latter fact endeared her to him even more than the first. “My mum’s name was Lyra.”

“That’s lovely.”

“Yeah,” Jyn said, “Yeah, she was.”

-:-

Jyn glanced at the note on the library door and tried to crush her own disappointment. She read it again then turned, leaning up against the wall and dropping her bag to the floor. She wasn’t sure where Cassian’s locker was; she’d have to wait there. 

She crossed her arms and watched the wave of students file out, cold wind rushing in from the rain outside. She spotted Trooper in the group, walking with his pack of friends. His black eyes cut into her and she met his eye steadily, giving him her nastiest glare. 

Trooper wasn’t his  _ real  _ name – she just called him, and his friends, that, because they all looked the same and had the same shitty ideas about everything. They followed Krennic around like bodyguards and tore down anyone who happened to be in their path. Catching a Trooper on his own like she had had been a rarity. Troopers usually travelled as a pack.

“Jyn?” 

She looked away from Trooper and stood straighter as she realized Cassian had arrived, examining the sign on the door. 

“Closed for carpet cleaning,” Jyn told him, glancing back at the Troopers, but they were gone. She felt herself relax and turned back to Cassian, who was still examining the sign. His fingers were curled around the strap of his backpack, considering. 

“We could go to my house,” Cassian said, surprising her. “My mom has a night shift, and my dad usually isn’t home until six.”

“Uh,” she cleared her throat, mostly to cover up the sudden alarm blaring through her head. 

(SHE WAS GOING TO CASSIAN’S HOUSE AND  _ HIS PARENTS WEREN’T HOME _ ).

“Sorry,” Cassian turned to her almost apologetically, “We can cancel, too. Kenobi just gave us a new problem set today, and I’m pretty lost.”

“No,” Jyn said, plastering a cool demeanor over her surprise. “No, that sounds good.”

The rain hadn’t let up yet, so they waited just inside the doors until the bus showed up, which they dashed out to reach. They made it into the bus just as it was about to leave, then stepped quickly to a free pair of seats. Jyn shook off her hood, blinking water from her eyelashes, before sitting next to Cassian. The seats were so close, their thighs were pressed against each other; Jyn did her best not to notice.

Bodhi had texted her in last block, telling her he was getting a food with one of the Year 12’s he knew through Engineering Club, and could wait for her after tutoring. She took out her phone and sent him a quick text, keeping an eye on the road. They were turning into a nicer neighbourhood, barely ten minutes from school, where houses had literal picket fences and huge, wide doors. 

“You said your mom has a night shift?” Jyn asked, turning to him. Cassian had relaxed against the window, his bag on his knees. “Where’s she work?”

“Yeah,” he said, as the bus made a left. “She’s an emergency room doctor. She’s still relatively new to the hospital, so she picks up night shifts a few times a month.”

“And your dad?”

“School teacher,” Cassian said. Jyn raised her eyebrows.

“Not of physics, then?”

He laughed and shook his head. “Primary. He teaches Year Three.”

Jyn thought of Saw, who had taught her how to case cars to steal when she was  _ nine _ . She said, “I live with my guardian, Saw. He… does contract work.”

Cassian glanced at her, “He took you in after your mum passed?”

Jyn nodded, “And adopted Bodhi a bit after that.”

Cassian reached up and pulled the stop request, and Jyn was surprised at how short the ride way. He lived really close to school, then. As the bus pulled over, they got up and waited at the doors before dashing off again, Cassian leading the way to one of the houses. 

It had dark siding and white trim. They went quickly to the door, ducking under the porch overhang while Cassian slotted the key in the lock. He opened the door and gestured for Jyn to go first, ducking in after her and shutting the door. Jyn stepped to the furthest edge of the inside mat, trying to give him room but also trying to keep her converse from mucking up the wood floors. 

Cassian ditched his shoes and jacket first, taking and hanging hers up while she unlaced her converse. He led the way down the hallway; framed photos of his family decorated the long wall, in matching frames that went with the wall colour. Jyn glanced at the pictures, finding four girls standing with Cassian. They all had the same thick, dark hair as him, and the same black eyelashes.

“You have sisters?” She asked, trailing after him. 

“Four of them,” he confirmed, turning, “All in uni, now. The house is pretty quiet without them.”

“Are they close by, at least?” Jyn asked, thinking of Bodhi. She would never want to be without him. 

“One of them went back to Mexico, to study there, but two of them are in Spain,” Cassian said, “Luisa, she’s closest to us in age, is just in France.”

Jyn nodded, “That’s not bad.” She followed him down the hall where it opened up into a kitchen, with smooth countertops and a wide table, as well as a set of bar stools up against the counter. 

“Do you want something to eat?” Cassian offered, looking into the fridge.

“Sure,” Jyn said, feeling some old habits creep up. “Can I use your bathroom?”

“Course,” Cassian said, pulling away from the fridge to point. “Back down the hall and up the stairs on the right.”

“Thanks,” Jyn slipped back down the halls, looking at the photographs again. There was one of one of Cassian’s sisters – Luisa, she thought maybe – pushing Cassian’s head with a smile, his hair all caught up in spikes in between her fingers. SIt made her think of Bodhi and she smiled.

Jyn stepped lightly up the hardwood stairs, trying to shove aside the part of her that was comparing Cassian’s beautiful home with the Hole. Her building’s lift hadn’t worked for literal years. Their three bedrooms would probably fit in Cassian’s kitchen and dining room alone.

The first door visible to her was the door on the left, door partway open. She glanced behind her then peeked in.

She knew it was Cassian’s room immediately. It was neat as a pin, all smooth dark tones. She could see his leather jacket on his desk chair, but what really gave it away were the books. They were stacked carefully in bookshelves and shelves built into the wall, and on his small bedside table. She could see him, seated at the desk or sprawled on the bed, elbow deep in his latest novel. The space fit him well. 

When she returned downstairs, Cassian had set up his notes and a bowl of berries, set between their spots. Jyn slid into the chair next to him. 

“Alright,” she said, pulling the booklet towards her, “What does Kenobi have for us?”

As they worked through, Jyn noticed Cassian seemed a bit… looser. He was more relaxed, being at home. He took up space more easily, leaning with his elbow on the back of his chair to look at her. His smile even came more easily, whenever he got an answer or even a step correct. And then, halfway through, Jyn demonstrated solving a particular problem and he leaned in, closer than he usually did. His arm brushed against hers, stayed there. She liked this version of Cassian, who leaned in closer than was necessary, and whose breath smelled like strawberries.

-:-

“Are you coming to my party on Friday?” Leia asked. Her parents were going out of town for the weekend, so news had spread like wildfire through the school. Surprisingly discreetly, however, for high school students – with her father a Deputy Head, it had to be. And Leia would probably wring anyone’s neck who spoiled it. Leia waited a beat, then added, “Cassian will be there.”

Jyn’s eyes jumped up to her, realizing her mistake a second too late. She tried to play it off, shrugging, “I don’t know if I’ll go.”

“Oh, come  _ on _ ,” Leia said, coming close to a whine, but still too dignified for that. “Come over early, you can help me set up.  _ Han’s _ not going to be very much help, let’s be honest.”

Now Jyn watched her suspiciously. Leia was usually a lot more blasé about Jyn coming to her parties; usually, she knew the more aloof she was, the more likely Jyn was to show. “Why do you want me there so early?”

Then Leia smiled and Jyn knew she’d played right into her hands. “Because if you come early, Bodhi will come early. And Luke will owe me his entire ass.”

Jyn laughed, shaking her head at her. Leave it to Leia to come up with a  _ scheme _ to make her brother  _ happy,  _ of all things.

Jyn gave it due consideration. She’d noticed something between the boys, too. Bodhi had mentioned him at least a couple of times a week since tryouts, and they had two classes together this semester. Each time Bodhi had mentioned him it had been a little  _ too  _ casual; like he’d planned it out beforehand and was speaking very carefully.

“Alright,” Jyn said, “We’ll be there.”

Leia  _ beamed _ .

-:-

Now that Jyn was paying attention, it seemed Leia’s party was even more popular than she’d originally thought. Girls were constantly talking about it in the bathroom, and the two boys who sat in front of her in Physics wouldn’t shut up about it; until she jabbed one in the back with her very sharp pencil, that is. They were talking about  _ energy transformations _ , which was only the  _ coolest part of Physics _ , god damn. 

Jyn ignored it all and went to tutoring like normal (the new normal) after school. A few weeks had gone since they’d started this, and it… wasn’t as horrible as she’d thought. They’d claimed the best table in the library, and Cassian was getting a bit more generous with his compliments on her work. English didn’t give her headaches, anymore. 

It was Cassian’s turn to do the tutoring, so they were practicing thesis statements. It wasn’t like when Krennic did it, throwing a fully-formed thesis on the board with no explanation; Cassian broke its writing down into steps, which made it easier to wrap her head around. 

“There, yes,” Cassian said excitedly, “You’ve got it. That’s excellent.” He smiled at her and Jyn thought that he should never  _ not  _ smile, maybe. Jyn held back her own smile, looking down at her work. It  _ was _ a lot better than the crap she’d come up with a week ago.

They began to pack up, Cassian neatly sweeping crumbs into the garbage and sliding his books in one by one while Jyn more or less dumped everything into her bag. Just as Jyn was zipping her bag shut, words burst out of her that she hadn’t expected.

“Hey, are you going to Leia’s on Friday?” She’d only been thinking about it the whole time they were working, and anytime he spoke. 

“Yeah,” Cassian said, blinking away his surprise, “Han asked me to help get the keg, we’re going to go after practice.”

Jyn nodded, “I’ll see you there.” She  _ sounded _ a lot cooler than she felt.

“Good,” Cassian said, and there was that smile again. Oh, she was in trouble.

-:-

Friday rolled around, and Jyn was  _ not stressed _ about the party. It was just a party. She’d been to  _ parties _ before, this was nothing  _ new _ . 

She just – was annoyed that Bodhi had practice, was all, because he wasn’t there to whine to about… parties. Leia had foiled her own plan, and called an emergency practice, since the sprinters had been slacking, or something. Leia asked him to get the keg with Han straight after, so Jyn went home and tried not to get annoyed about it. And the general empty feeling that her closet had suddenly taken on. 

_ Why  _ did she own so much  _ plaid _ ?

She ended up wearing the exact same thing she wore to school after getting frustrated, because you know what? There was no reason to change. She wasn’t trying to impress anybody. (A lie, but  _ whatever _ ).

Jyn took the bus, knowing the route from when she slept over, and arrived there in less than thirty minutes (a feat for transit). She skipped the white steps out front and walked in without knocking. 

Pop music was already playing on the house’s sound speaker, and Jyn noticed that all breakables, like the vase that had once been by the door, had been swept into hiding. Jyn toed off her sneakers and crossed her arms, calling up into the house, “Hello?”

“Kitchen!” Leia’s voice floated down the hall towards her. In the kitchen, she was bent over the island, organizing bags of crisps into bowls. Leia, of course, looked ethereal. She was wearing a form fitting dress that made Jyn regret her choice of dirty flannel and ripped jeans, despite the fact that Jyn had never – and  _ would _ never – own something like that dress in her life. 

She snapped down on the regret immediately, shoving it away.

“Put those crisps in those bowls, will you?” Leia asked, indicating a couple of bags she hadn’t reached yet. Jyn started to do so while Leia sorted out another tray, saying, “Where’s Bodhi?”

“Went with Han to get the keg,” Jyn said, and Leia smiled. 

“Good. That lug came through.” Jyn looked at her suspiciously.

Before she could ask, however, the front door swung open again, and Han’s voice announced their arrival. Leia called to them the same way she had to Jyn, and she could hear four feet moving heavily along the hall, weighed down by the key. She looked up, expecting Bodhi. But Han appeared with Cassian, hauling the keg in.

“Where you want it?”

Leia directed them and Jyn focused on her job, getting the damn crisps together. She looked up to watch the boys lift the keg up onto the counter, setting up the tap.

“Bodhi and Luke are coming with the next one,” Cassian said.

“We’ll put that one in the front,” Leia said, leaving the kitchen. Han trailed after her, leaving Cassian and Jyn in the kitchen, not quite looking at each other. 

“How’d you fit all that in Han’s Falcon?” Jyn asked, looking up. Cassian grinned. The truck was a bit infamous, especially because everyone knew that Han drove without a permit. Where he parked it everyday was a mystery, though, since he’d been banned from the lot after keying Hutt’s car, just weeks before Leia’s own infamous destruction of it.

“That’s why I was recruited. Han needed the help,” Cassian said, walking over and leaning against the counter beside her, crossing his arms. His hair was a little damp. He must’ve showered after practice. “Leia said, and I quote, ‘I’m not letting that idiot drive the booze in that  _ ridiculous _ hunk of junk of his’.” 

Jyn laughed, despite herself, and despite a growing suspicion. “Leia said that, huh?” 

“Yeah,” Cassian said, “Cornered me after English.”

That sounded familiar. Jyn smiled, and said, a bit vengefully, “You know Han and Leia’s first kiss was in that ridiculous hunk of junk.”

Cassian laughed, shaking his head, “Hypocrite.”

“Uh huh,” Jyn replied, still smiling.

“Hey, Jyn? Can you come help me with this?” Leia’s voice called, like she knew she was being talked about. Jyn tilted her head towards the voice.

“See you around,” she said, turning and leaving the kitchen. Leia was standing in the foyer, watching Luke and Bodhi set up the second keg, turning to Jyn.

“The boys have this handled,” Leia said, tipping her head to the stairs, “Come on.”

They went up to Leia’s room, which was all tasteful creams and pastels, and into her tiled, beautiful bathroom. Leia applied red lipstick called  _ Orgasmic _ , examining herself in the mirror.

“Wishful thinking?” Jyn teased, holding up the lipstick. Leia elbowed her and Jyn failed to dodge it in the small space.

Leia dug around in her makeup bag and produced a green eyeliner, “Can I? It’ll make your eyes pop.”

“Why do I feel like you have some kind of ulterior motive here?” Jyn asked, nodding anyways and letting Leia catch her chin. Leia started to trace her eyelid and Jyn ignored the tickling feeling of it, looking up. 

“Me? Ulterior motive?” Leia said innocently, “Never.” She switched eyes then stepped back, examining her handiwork. “There. Done.”

Jyn turned to look at herself in the mirror. She already had been wearing black eyeliner all day, but Leia added that bit of green on the edge. It didn’t look bad, or gaudy; just like she had a bit of green eyeliner on. Leia had a bit of a point, though. Her eyes looked a little brighter.

By the time they’d left the bathroom, someone had turned the music up, and there were far more people downstairs than when they’d gone up. Jyn recognized the rest of the athletics team, lingering in the living room, and waved at her brother but didn’t stop, because he and Luke were sharing a squishy chair, talking over their beers. Not something you particularly wanted your  _ sister _ to interrupt.

Unsure of what to do with herself – Leia had disappeared, probably off with Han – she went to the kitchen, sliding past the people in the narrow hall. If anything, she could get a drink.

Cassian was where she’d left him, but now he was joined by a startlingly tall boy she knew, another one from the athletics team. The same one from the hall – Kay, who was the school’s star mathlete. Jyn was fairly sure he was at least  _ part  _ computer.

“Hey,” Cassian said when she walked up to the island. He looked at her and looked at her again, and Jyn decided she wasn’t going to tease Leia about her makeup for a while. “Uh… this is my friend Kay, I think you’ve met? Kay, Jyn.”

“Yeah,” Jyn said with a smirk, “We’ve met. How’s it going, Kay?”

“Just fine, thank you,” he said, looking down at her with wide, wide eyes. He looked at Cassian, “Jyn was on the math decathlon team last year. We made it to nationals.”

Jyn glared, “I was  _ not  _ on decathlon.”

“Yes, you were,” Kay said, completely unbothered. “You were the most combative member of the team. It was part of your parole.”

“I was  _ not  _ on parole,” Jyn said, looking back at Cassian. “It was an... agreement. Imwe and I came to. Regarding my detentions.”

God, she was a mess. She was an absolute disaster, too full of violence and a skewed sense of justice, and Cassian was there to witness all of it. And he was looking at her thoughtfully, like he was reconsidering spending an hour alone with her everyday for tutoring. 

“So,” Cassian started slowly, “Have you been strong-armed into  _ every _ extra curricular at the school, or…?” But then she saw he was smiling and he wasn’t – he didn’t think she was terrifying. He didn’t think that she was a good-for-nothing delinquent. That was good. 

“Actually, no,” Jyn told him primly, “No one forced me onto the hockey team.”

Then Kay looked at Cassian and back at Jyn. “I will be going to speak to Artoo, now.” He turned and left, Jyn raising her eyebrows at his abrupt departure.

“Kay’s my best friend,” Cassian said, almost like a warning. “He’s… kind of protective. And he doesn’t like you very much.” Cassian smiled apologetically, “He thinks you’re a bad influence.”

“What?” Jyn had half a mind to go fight him, but realized that was probably what Kay meant. “I don’t know what he means,” she said, crossing her arms and leaning back against the counter.

“Well,” Cassian said, and when Jyn shot her eyes to him, she found him smiling a little still. “You  _ did  _ leverage tutoring me to get out of detention.”

“Yeah, and Kenobi should thank me for it,” Jyn said and it made him laugh. It sounded, somehow, like her favourite rock album, but played low, in the dark. She said, like she was still a little sore about it, “Maybe  _ you’re _ the bad influence. You’ve got me eating in the library every day, which is a direct violation of Binks’  _ only  _ rule.”

“Not his only rule,” Cassian corrected, “He also has a rule against hook ups, after Han and Leia last month.” And oh,  _ god _ , Cassian Andor just referenced hook ups to her. Even he seemed to realize it, ducking his head a little. “Mr. Binks would have a fit if he knew about the crisps, though,” Cassian agreed. “May I get you a drink?”

_ May I, _ what a fucking nerd. “Yeah. Beer, please.”

He got her a beer and himself a Coke, resuming his position across from her. She was leaned against the counter, and he the island, their feet almost touching between them. It was just  _ so easy _ to talk to him. It was the easiest thing in the world.

“I thought you were stuck up,” Jyn admitted, an hour later. They’d moved to sitting on their respective counters, legs hanging between them. “When you first moved here.”

“Stuck up?”

“A little,” Jyn said, feeling embarrassed and warm, because she’d got him  _ so  _ wrong, and she knew it. It was the beer, too; Jyn was hardly a lightweight, but she hadn’t eaten dinner, and Leia’s alcohol was always somehow stronger. “You were so quiet. I thought you were judging me.” Cassian shook his head at her, and she reached her foot out, toeing him in the shin. “Come on, that’s probably  _ nothing _ compared to what you thought of me.”

Cassian leaned up on his hands, elbows straight, and tilted his head at her. “What do you think I thought of you?”

“The first time you saw me I was smashing Melshi with a hockey stick,” she told him, half laughing. Cassian shook his head. 

“That wasn’t the first time I saw you,” he said it with such certainty that Jyn had to ask. 

“What was?”

Cassian leaned back a little, his eyes going far away as he narrated, “I started a bit late in Year 10, so I missed the first couple days. I was in the office, getting things sorted out.” Jyn braced herself, preparing to hear about how he saw her getting reamed out on that first day, that  _ that  _ was his first impression of her.

“You know the big window, by the secretaries’ desk?” Cassian said, surprising her. Jyn nodded. “I saw you outside it. You were sitting on the school steps, reading. I tried to lean over, to see the title, and it was a collection of lectures. I looked it up and realized it wasn’t fiction at all, but some book on physics.” He looked at her, “That was the first time I saw you. Reading a book about maths just because you could.”

Jyn considered that image of herself. She must’ve looked pretty smart. Pretty interesting. She wondered what it would be like, if people thought that of her. 

Jyn put her beer down beside her. It required more coordination than she’d expected and she turned to him, “I’m pretty drunk.” He looked surprised for a moment, almost like he thought he did something wrong. But then Jyn said, “Want to go get something to eat?”

They were surrounded by bowls of crisps, and there was a stack of pizzas within reach. Cassian easily could’ve pointed that out. 

Instead, Cassian got his coat and Jyn told Bodhi where she was going, then they set off, walking along the dark road of Leia’s neighbourhood. Soon the sounds of the party fell away and they were left walking down the road, towards the nearest Maccie’s. It was nice, to walk down the dark, warm street like that, hands close enough to brush. 

They bought burgers and took one of the plastic booths in the back, sitting across from each other. Cassian’s leather jacket was beat up, and a little too big. She couldn’t stop looking at it.

“How old were you when your guardian adopted Bodh?” Cassian asked, continuing their conversation about families from their walk.

“Nine,” Jyn smiled, “It’s just the two of us. I can’t remember what it was like without him around.”

“I have four older sisters,” Cassian said, “I get it. I can’t imagine life without them. I was born in Mexico and we moved over when I was ten, so I still remember it, of course, but they tell me about it all the time. Like they’re all making sure I remember.”

Jyn imagined it: four girls, all older than Cassian with his thick brown hair, whispering stories of their home, taking turns keeping their heritage alive in him. It was a nice image. She wished she could do the same for Bodhi.

“Four sisters,” Jyn said, “That’s a full house.”

“Yeah, well, I’m sure it’s nothing compared to you and Bodhi together.” Cassian teased, “The Andors are pretty quiet. You’re a different beast altogether.”

“Andor, did you just call me a beast?”

“In a nice way,” Cassian said, “Complimentary, I promise. Han said you had more detentions than even him.”

“I’ll have you know,” Jyn started, not sure where she was going with it. “That I deserved every one of those,” she admitted, laughing. Cassian started laughing too, watching her giggle over her burger. God, she was  _ giggling _ . She really must’ve been drunk, to be like this.

But Jyn wasn’t drunk at all, not after that huge burger, not when she’d initially drank on an empty stomach. She had sobered right up, and that was why she knew the urge she had to lean forward and plant her mouth on Cassian’s wasn’t just some drunken whim.

Instead she reached forward and picked up her drink, taking a sip. She glanced up at Cassian, and caught him watching her, watching him.

-:-

Jyn spent that weekend on the couch, spread out under one of her dad’s old knitted blankets, reading. She’d dug out  _ The Feynman Lectures on Physics _ , which she’d last read at school, out on the front steps.

Bodhi was on the other end of the couch, long legs nudging hers for space. He kept trying to steal her blanket and his phone wouldn’t stop buzzing. She paused in her reading to watch him reply, text tones clicking rapidly as he typed.

Jyn returned to her book, flipping the next page, when she asked casually, “How’s Luke?”

Bodhi’s eyes darted up to hers. Then he smiled sweetly, “Good. He’s really good.” It kind of took Jyn’s fun out of it. Without him denying it, it made it harder for her to tease him. 

It made it harder but not  _ impossible _ . “Did you two actually ever  _ stop  _ talking?” Jyn asked, “Or did you immediately start texting after he dropped you off?”

Then Bodhi lost his sweetness and looked mischievous. Jyn leaned back against the arm rest, watching him with narrowed eyes.

“Speaking of,” Bodhi said, “How did _ you _ get home last night? Who was that walking you?”

Jyn ignored him slouching down behind her book and ignoring the way her face suddenly grew hot, too.

-:-

Athletics practices started to pick up, their first meet looming over the team. Leia was calling them thrice a week after school, and once more  _ before  _ school. The schedule was turning militant, and  _ Jyn  _ had to get up earlier and earlier to ride the bus with Bodhi (neither of them liked taking transit alone). She wasn’t even on the team, but it was starting to feel like she was, she was spending so much time hanging around them. If Leia made  _ one  _ more faux-helpful remark about joining them to improve her speed for hockey, she was going to sweep Leia’s legs next hockey practice.

Bodhi didn’t mind early morning practices at all – not even the ones on  _ Monday _ . He was all springing energy while Jyn thought the sun should go back behind the horizon, dammit, and leave them in peace. Bodhi bounced across the field while Jyn dragged her feet on the sideline, intent on curling up in the grass for some kind of nap, discomfort be damned.

She had just settled on the ground, curled into her coziest jumper, when Cassian appeared, in his athletics uniform. In his hand, he held a thermos.

“Hey,” he said, smiling, but kept his voice low. Jyn was too exhausted to care about her rumpled appearance, pushing her sunglasses on her head. Cassian reached forward and took her hand, making every alarm in her head blare suddenly, despite even the hour. They continued screaming, even as he revealed his intentions.

Cassian pressed the thermos into her hand, still smiling, “Figured you’d come in with Bodhi. Thought you might need this.” He squeezed her hand, still curled around the cup, then left, jogging over to the huddle of runners stretching. 

Jyn watched him until he joined the group on the stretch. He turned towards her and she looked away, opening the top of the thermos. The smell of strong coffee wafted out and Jyn took a deep breath, feeling hope again. 

Carefully, she took a sip. He’d added cream and sugar, and it wasn’t hot enough to burn her mouth, but it still warmed her insides. Jyn leaned back against the bleaches and felt a little more optimistic about the day. 

-:-

Chirrut settled in across from Jyn, folding his long fingers in his lap. It was time for their bimonthly check-in. Usually, Jyn would have something ready to talk about, something she should work on (she had a lot to choose from – her anger, her resentment, her vigilante view of justice, her tendency to punch first and ask questions later, the vandalism, lingering abandonment issues, the never-ending paradox of being  _ too much  _ and  _ not enough _ ). But Jyn had been distracted all morning. She’d forgotten to settle on something, because her mind had been elsewhere. 

She’d been thinking about the thermos in her bag, how it was a different kind of intimacy to make someone coffee at home rather than buying it, to guess (correctly) what someone took in it, to  _ hand deliver _ that coffee in a dented, well-loved thermos from home.

When she didn’t start, Chirrut did. “How are things going?”

She shrugged. “Fine.” At his patient, non-judgemental face (that face that meant he was sure she  _ thought _ that,  _ but _ …), so she said, “Really.”

Chirrut said, “I heard you went to Leia’s party this weekend.”

Jyn blinked. Hadn’t that party been top secret? “How did you hear that?”

“Many students seem to think I am deaf, as well as blind,” Chirrut quipped. “Don’t worry, I haven’t told Mr. Organa. I am sure he knows, in any case.” Chirrut smiled, “Did you stay out of trouble?”

“Yeah,” Jyn said, slowly. “I, uh, was with the athletics team.”

Chirrut nodded sagely, “They’re a good group of kids.”

Jyn nodded too, avoiding eye contact. “I worry, though. They’re – really good. What if I’m not… good enough? To hang out with them.”

Chirrut hummed, “Why would you think that, Jyn?”

“I don’t know,” Jyn said, but she did. “The athletics team is very kind. And smart. And, like, good at everything – I mean, except physics – but even  _ that,  _ they’re improving, and the athletics team’s never been in a fight before, never even had detention, I don’t think. And I’m… not a very good person.”

“Comparison is never a healthy action, Jyn,” Chirrut said, “Especially when you don’t know the facts for sure.  _ Do you _ know all the facts, for sure, about the…athletics team?”

“I guess not,” Jyn admitted, crossing her arms and leaning back in her seat. 

“Where do you think that comes from? That feeling of not being a very good person?”

“Probably my record,” Jyn said, only half-joking. Chirrut nodded again, like he was considering all of that very carefully. 

“Why did you get into the latest altercation, again?”

Jyn shook her head, “He was picking on some new kid.”

Chirrut hummed. “And the fight before that, what about that one? With Mr. Hux?”

Jyn thought back. Hux had it coming, as far as she was concerned, the slimeball he was – always terrorizing other students with that Ren, who she’d  _ also  _ gotten into a tussle with before, when he was berating that girl Rey – though Rey hadn’t strictly seemed to need it. 

“Maybe you weren’t doing the right thing,” Chirrut continued. “But maybe they’re not for the wrong reasons. I think you’re trying. You’re here whenever I ask, aren’t you? You attend all your detentions, and in the last few months, have volunteered to spend that time tutoring, both for yourself and others. That counts for something.” And then he smiled in a way that made Jyn brace herself, “And I wonder if the  _ athletics team _ has noticed that.”

It was as close as he came to calling her on it, but he didn’t. Jyn was embarrassingly grateful.

-:-

SENT MESSAGE

TO: CASSIAN

b says u havent seen harry potter did you know thats a crime in this country

(1) NEW MESSAGE

FROM: CASSIAN

I’ve read them all. Will that be enough to avoid jail time?

SENT MESSAGE

TO: CASSIAN

itll take a couple years off your sentence

(1) NEW MESSAGE

FROM: CASSIAN

I better watch them then. I heard it’s a crime to watch them alone, however.

(1) NEW MESSAGE

FROM: CASSIAN

I’ll make popcorn.

SENT MESSAGE

TO: CASSIAN

name the time and place, andor 

-:-

Tears burned Jyn’s eyes as she stomped down the street a week later, and somehow that made all this worse, that she was crying over this. Hadn’t she cried enough over this and  _ him _ ? Wasn’t there an end point, where she’d be  _ free  _ from all this?

Galen had no  _ right –  _

_ Saw  _ had  _ no right –  _

To ambush her after a late practice like that? For Galen to show up, unannounced, wanting to talk – all when Bodhi was gone overnight for that engineer club retreat? Galen had  _ planned  _ it like that, the  _ slimeball _ , and Saw was no better, maybe  _ worse _ . She’d rather eat her own hand. She’d rather stomp off into the dangerous night, armed with nothing but her searing, tear-jerking fury.

Jyn walked without paying attention to where she was going, working on autopilot while she shook with anger. The sun had already dipped below the horizon and everything was wet and blurred from the rain, which made it easy to ignore where she was going. She had sprinted from her home and didn’t pay attention to the direction she ran in, going in the first direction she’d faced, feet slipping on the wet pavement. She’d run until she couldn’t anymore, breathing hard and dropping against a familiar brick building. Warm tears mixed with cool rain on her cheek, her chest heaving, the breath scraping its way down.

She was so blisteringly angry (and  _ hurt  _ and  _ sad _ and  _ upset _ ) that she barely noticed what building she was leaning against. But then she realized: school. She’d run all the way to school. 

Jyn’s first instinct was to slam her fists against the building. But then she spotted a large rock at her feet. She could break a window. Smash it in and then go inside herself – that would be good. She could go to Krennic’s classroom and ruin some things for him. She would enjoy it. Maybe it’d fill the hole inside her, the one carved out by her mother and her father and tore a little more each time Galen did this.

Breaking something would feel good. Hitting something would feel better. Violence was a siren song in times like this. It was her learned instinct, to destroy something before it destroyed her. 

But then Jyn thought, inexplicably, of the library. Of the way Cassian smiled when she’d done something well. Of the way Chirrut sat when she was in for her regular appointment, versus when she was there for disciplinary reasons. Of the way Bodhi would find her at her locker everyday she didn’t have detention.

She felt her fists loosen. She let out a slow breath, looking at the school with different eyes. It wouldn’t help anything. It wouldn’t help anything.

“Jyn Erso,” said a voice behind her. “What are you doing out so late?”

Jyn knew that voice. She spun and spotted him – Trooper, with his cronies. 

Immediately, she made another fist.

-:-

Cassian’s front door was too beautiful for her bloodied knuckles. But it was the only choice she had. 

She had a split second to panic, thinking of what would happen if his parents answered the door instead of him (she hadn’t thought of that,  _ fuck _ ) before Cassian swung open the door. She watched the confusion etched across his face soon replaced by fear, as he took in her eye and her mouth and her forehead.

“ _ Jyn _ ,” her name came out in panicked exhalation and Jyn should’ve never come here, if it was going to make him look like that. “Jyn, what happened?”

“It’s okay,” she said, breathlessly. Her face hurt. Her stomach hurt, where Trooper – one of them, anyway – had planted his boot. “I’m okay, Cassian.”

Then he was pulling her gently into the house, locking the door behind them, bringing her back to the kitchen where they’d practiced vectors, to the kitchen table, where he sat her down in a chair and bent in front of her to stare at her for a moment, one hand coming to her jaw. 

“Who did this?”

Jyn didn’t know what to do with all that concern. It was hardly the worst licking she’d ever taken. It was far from the worst shape she’d come home in. 

(But home wasn’t an option, because maybe Galen was there, and maybe the Troopers were waiting in the dark, waiting for another chance – )

“Troopers,” she said finally, unable to watch his eyes dart around her in such a panic. She wanted to make it better, didn’t know how. Her voice came out as a defiant snarl, avoiding fear and pain the best way she knew, “They were hanging out by the school.” She snarled again, “Waiting like the fucking  _ assholes _ they are for someone like me, someone smaller than them to  _ hurt  _ – “

Cassian said something in Spanish, something that felt like a curse, which contrasted with how delicately he was holding her jaw. It was more shocking than the slam of a fist. Then he stepped away, returning in a moment with an ice pack and a washcloth. He gave her the ice pack for her mouth while he wiped away some blood from her forehead.

“I tried to walk away,” she told him, honestly. She didn’t know why, but she wanted him to know. She wasn’t going to fight them. The one  _ fucking  _ time she’d decided to walk away – 

Jyn had seen the troopers, all four of them, standing behind her, and tightened her fist. And a moment later she’d loosened it and tried to walk away, even ignoring their jeers. But then one of them kicked her in the back, and she’d hit the ground so hard, she’d still been dizzy when the next one had grabbed her and planted his fist in her face – 

“It’s wrong,” Cassian said, pulling her from the memory. “What they’ve done. You didn’t deserve this, Jyn.”

Okay, no,  _ that  _ was more shocking than the slam of the fist. Just as rocking as the softness of his hands on her jaw, almost cradling her. 

She wanted to kiss him. She really wanted to kiss him, but it probably wasn’t the best time. Her lip was busted. And Cassian Andor was beautiful. 

“I’m okay,” she said, somewhat weakly. She didn’t want his face to be etched with concern like that. She reached up with her free hand to touch his wrist. “I’m fine.”

Cassian paused at wiping her forehead, catching her eye. They sat like that for a while – looking at each other in his kitchen late at night, his hand on her face and her hand on his hand. She shut her eyes. It was almost too much. A distant part of her, beneath the fresh bruising and sore skin, wanted more.

He took her hand to gently tug her upstairs, showing her the bathroom though she knew where it was, leaving her with a pair of soft sweatpants and a shirt that smelled like  _ boy _ . When she came out, changed and face washed, she found Cassian in his room, changing the sheets on his bed.

“Stay here tonight,” it was a request. The same voice he used when showing her how to plan an argument for an essay, “You can take the bed, the sheets are clean. And it’s late. Too late for you to go back on your own.” He’d also taken a pillow from the bed, put it on top of a sleeping bag. “I’ll go down to the couch.”

Jyn thought of walking home in the dark. Worse, she thought of Cassian going with her to the Hole, seeing where she lived. She thought of finding Galen still in their flat. She nodded.

“Where are your parents?” She found herself asking, feeling ridiculous for it. But they would’ve come out by now; their voices had been soft, but not because they were concerned about waking anyone up.

“Charity thing at some hotel,” Cassian said, “They’re staying there, so they don’t have to get a cab.” He pulled his phone from his pocket, unlocked it, and handed it over. “Text Bodhi for me. Tell him you’re here and you’re safe, okay?”

Jyn nodded. Fair enough. She typed out a message to Bodhi, doing her best to ignore the chat from before. (Nothing scandalous – asking about practice. But still. He’d handed over his phone so easily. And trust went both ways, right?).

Once she’d finished and handed it back to him, he smiled up at her and picked up the sleeping bag. Moving to leave, she stopped him with a hand on his wrist. She didn’t want to be alone and she couldn’t explain why. 

“Stay here?”

He nodded, setting the sleeping bag down again. Jyn curled up in his bed, pulling the comforter over her, and he unrolled the sleeping bag on the floor beside her. When he turned off the lights and climbed in, she dangled her hand off the bed. A question.

His hand answered, curling his fingers around hers, and he squeezed once, tight.

-:-

The next day at school, quiet, mild-mannered Cassian Andor walked up to Trooper during his gym class and punched him clear across the face. Jyn wasn’t there to see it; the news caught her by Krennic’s class, and she knew she had to speak with Cassian immediately. She wanted every detail. She wanted to make sure he didn’t jam his wrist or break his thumb; as far as she knew, he’d never punched anyone, not properly, before. 

Jyn knew what buttons to push to get what she wanted. Krennic was fairly easy, actually, when it came to button pushing.

“Say one more word and I’ll give you detention, Erso,” he warned, not five minutes into class. Jyn smiled, all teeth. 

“One more word.”

Sometimes Krennic would go so red that he would look like a pimple on the verge of popping. This was one of those times. 

Jyn sauntered into lunch detention just in time for roll call. Malbus looked up at her and sighed. She smiled in return, and it pulled at her split lip. She ignored the open chair she usually took and walked right past it, into the second row, where Cassian had sat. She watched him smile, though he didn’t look up from his book. His thumb and wrist looked fine, but his knuckles were split and bruised. He had a bruise on his jaw too. Maybe it’d been more than one punch. If he’d gotten in a fist fight in the middle of P.E., she might have to kiss him. She might have to kiss him for a lot of reasons. 

“You should ice that,” she said, tipping her head to his hand, “I hear it’s good for stuff like that.”

“No talking,” Malbus grumbled, not looking up from his own book. Jyn glanced at him and took out a notebook, more for Malbus’ benefit, than actually doing anything. 

Cassian said quietly, “How’s your lip?”

Jyn looked at him. She smiled, “How’s it look?”

“Good,” Cassian said, almost shyly. “Looks really good, Jyn.”

And Jyn felt herself  _ blush _ of all things. She thought of waking up that morning, finding him still sleeping on the floor, his hand inches from hers. She thought of how he’d put her clothes in his washer over night, and they’d come out smelling like his detergent. 

“No talking,” Malbus said again, but now he was squinting at them, like he was noticing something he hadn’t before. She smiled at him, too. Malbus squinted a little harder.

-:-

Krennic’s classroom was the opposite of what an English class  _ should  _ have been. It was all white cinderblock walls with no attempt to cover them. The desks were all in neat rows that he got them to re-line to the tape boxes he put on the floor at the end of every class. His desk was bare of papers, pens, and even books. He didn’t have any books, actually, anywhere in the room, which Jyn was fairly certain put him in danger of having his teaching permit revoked. At least, it  _ should’ve _ been.

Just being in his class put Jyn on edge. It always smelled like ammonia, which gave her pounding headaches that didn’t help anything. Especially not when Krennic was walking around like the Grim Reaper, handing out their latest attempts on essays. 

Jyn stared blankly at the front board, determined not to give up  _ anything  _ to Krennic, the absolute weasel, who had already tried to imply that he knew about her bathroom-graffiti. She was fairly certain it was a bluff. Jyn did, after all, write crap about him in the bathroom every other week, but so did half the girls in his class. He wasn’t very popular.

He glided up to her side, pausing deliberately. Where he’d passed back work with a sneer to most students, usually paired with an insult, he seemed to have something special planned for her. Jyn looked up at him, raising her eyebrows.

“Not as typically horrendous as your work usually is,” Krennic said, loudly. Jyn jammed her tongue against her teeth to prevent herself from talking. “I’ll have you know, I’ve made a copy and intend on continuing to run it through my plagiarism checkers.”

Jyn bit back her comment –  _ liked it enough to make a copy, Krennic? I’m flattered  _ – and watched him set the paper on her desk. She didn’t give a  _ shit _ what Krennic thought of her work, but – her smile beat her resolve. Because there was an honest-to-goodness  _ 74  _ written in frustrated scrawl at the top.

She turned automatically, spotting Cassian, in the back row in their seating plan. He was looking at her, eyebrows raised,  _ how’d you do _ ? in his expression. Jyn couldn’t bite back her smile again, making his fingers into a seven then four. Cassian smiled too.

_ Good job _ , he mouthed, like he had nothing to do with it, like he hadn’t written thesis statements with her until their eyes began to bleed.

Jyn let herself look at him for a second longer, as reward, before turning back to the front, biting her lip and looking at her grade. It seemed to piss off Krennic more than any of her smart comments. She had a new goal. She was going to fucking  _ destroy  _ this class. Jyn smirked down at her desk. She could feel Cassian’s smile on the back of her neck, almost like a kiss.

-:-

Luke was rapidly becoming a fixture in their flat. He started taking the bus with them from practice. The first time an extra plate showed up at the dinner table Jyn was  _ merciless _ , but the two of them were so unabashedly earnest that it took the fun out of her teasing. Mostly. 

One afternoon, Jyn had come to the living room to find Luke and Bodhi curled up on the couch, watching some sitcom like an old married couple. She stopped, momentarily confused because there hadn’t even been a practice today. Leia had cancelled it at the last minute, because Han had done something. Consequently, Han had become the new team hero. He’d probably remain that for a least a week, unless he was already dead.

But here was Luke. He must’ve gotten a ride over. Jyn looked to Bodhi, then turned, heading into the kitchen, which had been her original destination. As she dug around in the fridge for juice, Bodhi walked in, elbowing her gently aside to get another yogurt.

“So,” Jyn said conversationally, “Luke’s here. Again.” She peeled the lid off, drinking straight from the carton, “Looks like it’s getting serious,” she teased. That’s how parents always teased in sitcoms, and it felt like Jyn’s duty to model that behaviour.

“Not you too,” Bodhi said, but Jyn was already going.

“You should be the Rook-Skywalkers. No, Skywalker-Rooks. Actually, hmm. Is the double-r awkward? I think it is. The first one is better.” 

“ _ Jyn, _ ” Bodhi whined, like this was uncalled her and he  _ wasn’t _ dating the golden-retriever of a human being in the next room. 

“Actually, I changed my mind. I like the double-r.” She was backing out of the kitchen, forgoing a cup and taking the carton instead, as Bodhi would say,  _ like a heathen _ . Jyn thought she was just saving the dishwasher from endless cups. “You both look very comfortable on that couch,” she said knowingly, “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

“Okay,” Bodhi said, “You’ve never even had a  _ boyfriend _ – “

“Uh, rude,” Jyn said, “Tosser.”

“Sorry,” Bodhi said, “I didn’t think you and Cassian had pulled your heads out of your arses yet.”

Now Jyn sputtered, pointing the carton at Bodhi accusingly. “Hey, this isn’t  _ about  _ me.”

“He asked today,” Bodhi continued, like she hadn’t spoken, “About  _ you _ . Wanted to know if you were coming to the athletics meet.”

Jyn wrestled with herself for a moment, wondering if her pride was going to win out. It didn’t. 

“What’d you say?”

“That you’d be there,” Bodhi said, “With his name painted on your face, and – “

“You  _ didn’t _ ,” Jyn said, hitting her fist into his arm. Bodhi twisted away from her, holding the spot she’d hit. 

“I told him you’d be there for me, okay?” Bodhi said, dodging her next blow. She wasn’t actually trying that hard. “And that you’d be there, cheering him on every second of the way, that you were custom-making a poster of his face,  _ with glitter _ – “

Bodhi made a break for the living room, and Jyn chased after him.

-:-

The athletics meet was being hosted in the heart of London, at a stadium developed for the Olympics. From world renowned competitions to high school meets. How the mighty fall. 

But Jyn’s smug inner monologue stopped short when she walked in beside Bodhi and realized the size of the stadium – and just how many schools were in the tournament. Clumps of school colours staked out their territory, parents and fans gathered around backpacks and duffle bags protectively while athletes warmed up and chatted nearby. 

Bodhi touched her arm, “There.” He pointed out the orange and red clump that marked their school colours. Orange and red were such stupid school colours, a fact that Jyn felt all the more deeply, because while she’d opted to her usual all-black ensemble, Bodhi had talked her into two orange and red stripes across each cheek. He had the same, but Jyn felt all kinds of ridiculous – she wasn’t on the damn  _ team _ . She had this stupid clashing paint on her face because she was a good sister, and she had  _ no _ other motives, thanks.

Bodhi pointed to a row of tables with people getting wristbands, “I have to check in. I’ll catch up.” Jyn nodded and watched him go line up, then started towards their school’s group, milling around each other. 

“Jyn,” she turned and found Cassian standing there (wearing those  _ shorts _ ). His knuckles, like her face, were mostly healed by now. She was almost sorry. She had almost liked the look of it. 

“Hey,” Jyn said. She looked out into the field, where athletes were warming up. “Nervous?”

Cassian shrugged, which Jyn guessed meant  _ yes,  _ but he didn’t want to talk about it. “Nice face paint,” he said, and Jyn felt herself  _ blush _ of all things. 

“Thanks,” she said. “Bodhi made me.”

“Uh huh,” Cassian said, almost smiling. She didn’t know what about it made her do it. He was just  _ standing  _ there, it wasn’t like he’d done anything particularly  _ special _ . 

Well, Jyn wasn’t exactly known for her self-control. 

She stood up on her tiptoes and grabbed his hand, more to help her leverage him  _ down  _ (he was  _ tall,  _ okay?), and kissed his cheek lightly. “Good luck,” she said, and when she pulled back, Cassian’s eyes were a bit bugged. A horrible knot appeared in her stomach, suddenly certain she’d misread  _ everything _ , of  _ fucking  _ course – 

But then Cassian’s face broke out into the most beautiful grin and he’d looked at her, almost bashful. He squeezed her hand (which she noticed she was still holding,  _ yikes _ ), then brought it to his mouth, pressing a kiss to her now-healed knuckles.

They didn’t say anything, just stood there smiling at each other like fools, until Cassian’s event was called and he had to go, parting with one last hand squeeze.

-:-

After the meet, Leia called for celebratory Nando’s, so they made plans to meet at the closest one. Jyn and Bodhi ended up getting a ride in Han’s massive Ford along with most of the rest of the team, crammed inside like sardines. 

Jyn somehow ended up in Cassian’s lap, and she was blushing so hard she thought she’d start on fire. When Bodhi dared to send her a look and she’d glared, the effect had been comical. Whatever. Brothers were stupid, anyways.

Immediately after they got their booth, however, Jyn realized she’d forgotten her phone in the car. Keys between her fingers, she hurried back out to the parking lot, using the key on the door since the clicker was dead. She leaned into the backseat and retrieved her phone from the floor, slipping back out of the car and locking the doors again. 

Just as she did, she heard her name called. Jyn turned and saw Cassian jogging towards her. He was still in his jersey but he’d pulled sweats over his shorts. Too bad. The medal looked pretty good on him, though. A lot of things looked pretty good on him.

“Hey,” Jyn said when he caught up to her, leaning against Han’s truck (she  _ refused  _ to call it by the name he’d given it, even in her own head. Han had a big enough head as it was). 

“Hey,” Cassian said. He moved carefully into her space, dipping his head towards her. “Thanks for coming today.” The setting sunlight was warm and bright enough to make them crinkle their eyes as they looked at each other.

“I came for Bodhi,” Jyn said, a half-lie. Of course she came for Bodhi. It wasn’t the  _ only  _ reason he had. Cassian’s slow grin called her on it, his hand lifting carefully to her cheek. To make up for the half-lie, she said, “I never congratulated you.” She lifted her hand and touched his medal, tracing the edge of it.

Cassian looked confused, “Yeah, you did. You came up to me after, said so.”

Jyn smiled slowly and looked up at him, “Not like that. Like this.”

And honestly? Jyn should be the one with the medal, for finally ( _ finally _ ) planting a kiss on Cassian Andor in the sun-soaked parking lot of a Nando’s, up on her toes so she could reach. 

Alright, she admitted privately.  _ Maybe  _ she had a crush.

-:-

Hockey season picked up after that, and so did her classes. Jyn got  _ busy _ , suddenly, and having a  _ boyfriend _ didn’t help things. Or, they  _ did  _ help things. Jyn suddenly had a lot less time to break rules.

Well, except for one. But getting kicked out of the library for making out didn’t seem like  _ that  _ much of a blemish on her reputation.

Suck on  _ that _ , high school.

**Author's Note:**

> Trying to wrap my head around British schooling systems took a year off my life. Any mistakes are my own, and I’m happy to correct them. Special shout out to the Google Classroom of one Mr. Warren out in Nova Scotia, cause I’ve never taken Physics, and misguidedly decided to make that Jyn’s speciality, so I borrowed a lot of fancy terms from there.


End file.
